In spring, heavy fogs frequently shroud the mountaintops or fill the valleys like a ghostly sea. There’s the sound of spring peepers in Canaan Valley by night, while music pours from the Purple Fiddle in Thomas.
It’s the year 1935. The Hemlock forest near Aurora is full of laughter and music. Through the snowy trees a cabin is aglow, with about 12 people gathered inside. This was the Youghiogheny Forest Colony. Most visitors would pass by this site without knowing it, and truthfully one probably wouldn’t be able to find the original hand-built cabins without a local guide.
click here to have a listen…
by Matt Wilson Silver Lake is a small community located in the southeastern part of Preston County near the West Virginia-Maryland border. The community is named for a man-made lake of the same name, which is located within a private campground in the community. Built in 1928, the lake is retained by a small concrete […]
Young Elkins Musicians Help Revive Old Time Music
photo of the Alleycats outside the Delmonte in Elkins, by Bill King. The Tribble’s house stands out from the street because of the solar panels on the roof, and because even from outside you can hear the sound of 16-year-old Walter King warming up his fiddle. Beside him stands Nevada Tribble, with long, straight red […]
Civil War Sites Along (and near) U.S. Rt. 219
You can zoom in and out of this map and click & drag it to move around and explore it. Click on the different colored markers for more information on that particular civil war site. Timeline of Events in West Virginia during the Civil War along or near U.S. Route 219. 1861: June 3, […]
The 1892 Civil Rights Case of Coketon, West Virginia
About a year ago, a new historical marker sign went up in front of the Tucker County Court House, in Parsons, West Virginia along U.S. Route 219. The sign commemorates an exceptional story in West Virginia history, when a brave African American school teacher stood up to her local school board and sued them for […]
1906 was a tough year for Charles Darwin Gillespie. Gillespie, an infamous saloon owner and liquor runner was being sued for $20,000, a fortune at the time. It was only ten years earlier that Charles Darwin Gillespie left Virginia in a pair of dusty boots, a derby hat, and his only black suit. He arrived […]
Click the map to download a high-resolution copy of the Traveling 219 map, or pick up a hard copy at one of many locations along U.S. Route 219. You may also view our interactive map of Traveling 219 stories [HERE].
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